(excerpt from Writer's Path magazine interview)I'm am happy to interview Buzz Malone, author of The Silence of Centerville. I first came across Buzz Malone through his blog. What a sense of humor. He kept me smiling through every post. I soon discovered he had published a novel. The Amazon reviews intrigued me enough to add it to my reading list. Once I started reading, I found it hard to stop. It was nothing like I expected. Turns out this funny guy from a small town in Iowa has a talent for tender, dry-your-eyes storytelling. WP: What inspired you to write this book?Buzz: Silence of Centerville actually started with a deaf man character and an old Victorian house in Centerville, Iowa.WP: Tell us a bit about yourselfBuzz: I am a self-educated country boy (I think the 6th grade was the last one that I technically passed) from the backwater rural hills of Southern Iowa. WP: When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?Buzz: Always, and reaffirmed many times by my lack of desire to do much of anything else.WP: When were you first published?Buzz: When I was sixteen I started writing as a regional correspondent for a fishing magazine. It went out of business the next year and I am still left to wonder if the two events were somehow related.

WP: Why did you choose to self-publish?Buzz: The beauty of self-publishing is the ability to create and distribute something that a few hundred souls will enjoy on a personal level. I’d rather write things that less people will get to enjoy than write more query letters to agents that will never be read at all.WP: What was the hardest part about writing this book? How did you get through it? Buzz: The hardest part for me always comes about half way through the story, when the initial excitement and adrenaline has worn off. I always want to quit and throw the entire thing away then. Fortunately, my better half, Lorri, forces me to work through it. Even when I don’t want to, I know there will be hell to pay if she doesn’t get to read the next chapter soon, so I push through it until it’s done.WP: What suggestion or advice would you like to give aspiring writers?Buzz:...If writing your book brings you happiness, then odds are it will touch someone else. That is the thing…it isn’t about plot or structure or style or anything else. It’s about you, the writer… writing. And a reader out there somewhere feeling something when they read it. That’s it...